


Scorched Land

by Morie_mordant



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Descent into Madness, F/M, Madness, Tea, Violence, Weird Plot Shit, azula is already dark lmao, ba sing se is a city of secrets, change in age, dark! everything, dark! lu ten, dark! zuko, free interpretation of canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 14:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morie_mordant/pseuds/Morie_mordant
Summary: No one can escape from the dead city.





	Scorched Land

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Выжженная земля](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/319776) by Morie. 



Wouldn’t one like to escape from the dead city?

The stone crumbs were rustling underfoot, and her shiny black hair has become gray not with age but with ashes. The air was stale and stuffy; her heartbeat was placid, but it seemed slower and slower by the moment.

Azula gasped and hurriedly left yet another dilapidated building. It was suffocating. The sounds left her, neither echo nor whisper. Just ashes falling silently from the sky. She felt the pressure, something squeezing and squishing her insides, that horrible deafening silence, those heavy skies, it wanted to crush her, to –

She was almost relieved when she met her brother.

Blue flames, red flames. She could taste the saltiness of blood, as she kept biting her lips, and as she fought, a tight lump in her chest got dissolved. The glow of their fire blinded her. Almost like the sun.

A sun was in her hands, vivid, breathing, blue and scorching. A sun was blooming on his face, a tender pink scar tissue. A sun was in their rasping breaths and their boiling royal blood.

At this place, everything was becoming a hungry all-consuming Sun… everything but not a dim yellows disc above their heads.

The fight ended in a tie.

She followed him to some ruins that used to be some mansion, maybe even a palace. It was easy to imagine how majestic it once had been. They crossed the halls and end up in a tiny room – Azula was wary but entered anyway. Examining suspiciously the mug that her brother handed over to her, she weighed all the pros and cons and decided to accept it for now. Zuko snorted at her careful attitude but did not comment on it, as he took his own mug and sat down on a wobbly wooden chair.

The abandoned kitchen did not command confidence, especially because Zuko had clearly been here before.

“Now what?” – Azula asked, grinning.

Zuko frowned.

“Drink, - he said, - then we’ll find something to eat. Not that I’m hungry”.  
“Me neither. By any means, there’s only ash,” - it was gleeful and biting.

So familiar.

“Any ideas what are we doing here?” – so quietly that it almost missed her.  
“It must be a dream. Or an afterlife”.  
“So it is some kind of our personal hell?”  
“How can you call it hell, huh, my dear Zuzu?”

He did not reply. Azula turned around to look through the window, covered in dirt, dust, and soot. If she were to guess, she would say it was nighttime at the moment, but no stars were visible, as the skies were heavy with clouds. Only the debris of the capital of the Earth Kingdom was piercing through the fog and smoke, sticking out like a skeleton of a legendary beast. The realization that it was the capital of the Earth Kingdom brought to memory some vague images and a throbbing pain in the abdomen. However, she did not want to elaborate on that, hence she sat down, curling into a ball around a warm mug.

Probably it was a sudden awareness that he was still her older brother, Zuko took some time just watching her face and then he put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. The anticipated rejection has never come, but she might not have noticed the movement, as she stared at something beyond the window, beyond the city, beyond the horizon. At the end of the day, Azula had never needed for any consolations, any embraces, any older brothers.  
For the first time in his life, Zuko really thought whether it was true.

The tea turned out to be poorly made, too strong and bitter, and it left brown spots on the white delicate porcelain.

Outside the ash continued to fall throughout the night. Two were sitting on the floor, and for some reason, the blue flames did not burn his hands, when they held her, when they touched her skin.

Wouldn’t one like to escape from the dead city?


End file.
